Efforts of Amazon to Stop Shareholder Votes on Facial Recognition Blocked by US SEC

US securities regulators attempts of shot down by Amazon to stop its investors from considering proposals of two shareholders about the controversial sale of the company of a facial recognition service, that is a sign of growing scrutiny of the latest technology.

Decisions including one on the day of Wednesday by officials at the Exchange Commission (SEC) and Securities followed an unusual appeal by Amazon to block the proposals that are non-binding from being voted on at the upcoming annual meeting of the company.

One proposal would need Amazon to cease offering facial recognition to governments unless the board of the company determined sales did not violate the liberties of the citizens. A second would call for an audit to completely examine the harm to privacy and rights, if any, that might result from the service, known as Recognition.

Both proposals face battles that are uphill to receive a majority of support from various investors in the largest online retailer of the world and cloud computing organization. CEO and Founder Jeff Bezos will retain rights of the voting over about 16 percent of shares after the divorce of him and MacKenzie Bezos, she said on Thursday.

Amazon declined to comment on the decisions of the SEC. The organization is one of many marketers of the technology of facial recognition and has disclosed sales to law enforcement and to customers that are privately using the service for purposes such as celebrities that are identifying.

Groups of civil liberties have raised concerns including findings by a lot of researchers that technology of Amazon struggles more than some of the peers to identify the gender of various individuals with a little darker skin, prompting fears of arrests that are unjust. Amazon company has defended its entire work and said all of the users must follow the law.

Michael Connor, executive director of Open MIC, an advocacy group working with various different shareholders, including an order that is quite religious, who brought all the resolutions, said the decisions of SEC show the developing rules around the facial recognition are really a critical problem for an organization like Amazon and how it usually handles the business risk associated with the latest technology.

According to correspondence posted on the website of SEC, Amazon company had sought the permission of the regulator to skip the proposals as being insignificant to its particular business, among other things, but was turned down on the date of March 28.

Amazon company then took the unusual step of asking for a reconsideration of that particular decision but was again rebuffed in a letter of April 3 from the agency.

Other letters show the SEC gave permission to the Amazon company to skip proposals for things like a risk oversight committee, and that the Amazon company has resolved climate concerns raised by various other investors.

Robert Williams is a self-professed security expert; he has been making the people aware of the security threats. His passion is to write about Cybersecurity, malware, social engineering, Games, internet and new media. He writes for McAfee products atmcafee.com/activate .

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